Paint the Town Brown

Local rockers Cosmic Jelly are sort of an elusive band these days. They’re fading away into fond memory and separating officially, but it wouldn’t be like them to go out without a bang. On Sept. 2 the group will have a screening and CD release day for their new video, “Let’s Talk About Poop,” which is designed to knock the shit (or should I say poop?) out of your ass.

“[The video] was a summer project,” says director, producer and Cosmic Jelly guitarist Brett Sisun. “We started in June and worked through until now. We like to think of it as anti-art that is art.” He goes on to explain that this is the intended message behind one particular image in the video, which features a “Poop Monster” shoving his head through a painting. “People are either horrified by it or love it,” he says.

I’ll come clean: Feces totally amuse me, and “Let’s Talk About Poop”— whose title is derived from Sisun’s suggestion that it would make a great name for a TV show — is downright hilarious. The song “Let’s Talk About Poop” is awesome, too, and fits perfectly atop the video’s images of splattering defecation, porta-potties and mustache stroking on the john. OK, so perhaps this isn’t as highbrow a project as anything Da Vinci ever came up with, but it’s art nonetheless, and Cosmic Jelly is highly attuned to the ways of Eugene’s artistic community.

“We’re all shit smears,” says Sisun. “You can’t be too serious but at the same time you absolutely have to be serious. ‘Let’s Talk About Poop’ is weird, fun and affordable, and that’s what makes it perfect for Eugene.”